First impressions - Nokia 808: 41-megapixel does matter

When I heard about the 41-megapixel camera phone from Nokia stand, first thought was a comparison with the recently-launched Nikon D800, a professional camera, 36 megapixels, holds the record for resolution format DSLR's 35mm. Technically, sensor resolution seems impossible for many reasons. Wrong. Before explaining the operation of PureView technology.

The phone itself is a beauty: a device made of polycarbonate and Gorilla Glass, with a negligible thickness and a protuberant how the camera. In addition, running an operating system that Nokia already almost completely abandoned, Symbian. 1.4 GHz processor, 4-inch AMOLED screen, the 512MB of RAM and 16GB storage are impressive on a market as competitive as the smartphone.

Sensor, developed in partnership with Carl Zeiss, answers the question of the phone running on a platform so old: technology PureView idea goes back six years when he began work on the Nokia 808. The entire device is built around the room, so all compromises have in one way or another about the fabulous 41-megapixel resolution.

Nokia 808 PureView has two main ways of shooting. First available mode gives only 5 megapixels: the place to store all 41 million pixels, the camera captures for each pixel of the final seven physical pixels on the sensor. Of seven pixels captured, the machine chooses the pixel with the highest quality capture, to provide a result as clean and clear. 41-megapixel sensor mystery began to be logical.

The physical size of the sensor is extremely high, similar to that used by Nikon compact series Nikon 1, which we have presented throughout this review. With a length of 10.67 mm and a width of 8.00 mm, the sensor is absolutely huge for a phone. Thus, the final size of one of the 41 million collectors comes to be similar to that of almost any other sensor used in mobile phones. Catchments’ area was designed to provide a zoom without loss of quality and at the same time without moving parts. The only possible solution was the integration of sensor pixels so that they can cut large images (8.5 megapixels) in real time without any interpolation software.

The second mode is at the full resolution. As you can see in the picture above, the sensor effectively produce 41 megapixel images captured all but a maximum of 38 megapixel photos with a 4:3 aspect ratio and 34 megapixel image 16: format. The 41 megapixels are useful because they allow optimal use of sensor capacity regardless of how images are captured.

The results are spectacular: the level of detail is excellent and zoom without loss of quality is really useful. In conclusion, the first impression left by the Nokia 808 is a very positive, but we reserve the right to give a verdict only after a complete test of the device. Meanwhile, more details are available on the Nokia website.